Sunday, August 26, 2012

Who Wants to Paint El Hadj Baba Danpullo Black?

El Hadj Baba (in white surrounded by NW Fons)

El Hadji Baba Ahmadou
Danpullo one of the leading employers in Cameroon is again in the news. El
Hadj Baba alias Ndawara has been a victim of backstabbing and slanders. This ill-fated
state of affairs that is unjustifiably is being masterminded by a group of
people based in Douala.
According to what we gathered, media organs have been hired to embark on
destroying Baba Danpullo’s reputation just at the time he started developing
some parcels of land he acquired in Douala.

We were hinted that
even though El Hadj Baba has remained unperturbed by these offensive, counterfeited
and fictitious press reports, he has not ruled out the option of resorting to
the law to correct the prejudice he is suffering from the squatters over the pieces
of land he acquired legitimately and the false public opinion created by the
media.

Genesis

The press organs that
have published the erroneous information about Baba claim that he has seized
land from some inhabitants of Akwa, Marche Congo
in Douala. In
actual fact, Baba is the rightful owner of the piece of land in Akwa Douala
that is being claimed by illegal quarters. It all began with the recent fire
incident that consumed the Marché Congo in Douala. After the fire incident, some
squatters swung into action to occupy parcels of land that belong to others in
the bid to occupy the vast land left by the fire disaster that razed every
thing to ashes. Some squatters even erected houses on Baba’s land that was
adjacent to the burnt down Marche Congo. The piece of land has a surface area
of some 720 square metres. Knowing that Baba would not accept, the squatters
decided to hire press organs to circulate erroneous information about the piece
of land and Baba. In their bid to derail the public, they allegedly hired media
organs stating that the land title of the piece of land in question was long
cancelled by a decision of the Administrative Bench of the Supreme Court in
June 2010.

Contrary to this
erroneous information circulated by the hired press organs, information
gathered at the right sources in charge of land issues in Douala indicated that Baba Ahmadou is the
proprietor of the land in question. In actual fact, the land has a certificate
Nº 3712/Y10/MINDCAF/P530 of July 31, 2012 delivered by the Ministry of Land
Tenure. The certificate reads “the land
conservator of Wouri, Here undersigned certifies that an urban building
constructed on a surface area of 720m2 situated at Douala in the
Akwa neighbourhoods belongs in all legality to Mr. El Hadj Baba Ahmadou who
acquired it on December 6, 1995 through mutation after sales”. According to
this certificate, it therefore implicitly means that there is no land problem
or landownership problem between Baba Ahmadou and whosoever according to the statutes
applicable to Land Tenure and ownership.

Sometime in the past,
it should be recalled that Baba Danpullo, a peace loving Cameroonian who
respects the law wanted to develop the said piece of land. But some squatters
have already occupied the land, Baba invited the late quarter head, Bakouna
Cache for mutual discussions so that he could ask the squatters to leave his
piece of land and settle somewhere else. Being generous he did not want to
throw people into the street or use force. We also gathered from some reliable
squatters that at that time, he even promised financial compensation to enable
the squatters resettle somewhere else. Unfortunately, this humanitarian gesture
was obstinately rejected by the illegal squatters as if the land was theirs.

It was after the fire
incident that consumed the Marche Congo that Baba wanted to regain his piece of
land. But his attempt to develop his rightful possession has instead been tagged
a land grabber.

Gov’t Delegate, Douala
II Divisional Officer, & the Truth

After careful
verification with authentic documents, our source hinted that the Government
Delegate of the Douala City Council, Fritz Ntone Ntone, wrote to the D.O Douala
II, drawing his attention to the fact that the said piece of land rightfully
belonged to Baba Ahmadou Danpullo. This was done following a complaint by Baba
after all amicable solutions have failed. The letter reads “The DO of Douala II informed me last July 16th,
2012 of your correspondence with the following subject: Buildings erected on your
land with land title Nº 8402/W were also destroyed by the fire incident that
took place on the night of 3rd and 4th of July 2012. And
in this light, you want to rebuild a modern commercial complex in the site. In
this light, I request that you constitute a building permit file following the
laid down rules and deposit it in my office and wish the same manner that you
suspend all activities on the site until your permit is granted”. This was
the letter of the Government Delegate Fritz Ntone Ntone.

Other Occurrences

Some time ago, Baba
Danpullo was unduly accused of seizing land from the Mbororos and violating
human rights. These unjustified accusations forced former US Ambassador Neil
Marquardit to personally visit Ndawara Tea Estate in the North West Region of
Cameroon to have an on the spot assessment of the situation. Instead, Neil was
very embarrassed with what he saw. He discovered that through Baba initiative,
SODELCO was created to encourage mutual co-existence between the fulanis and
other ethic groups as well as contribute towards the socio-cultural development
of the people.

El Hadj Baba vision has
always been that the Fulani people are not a minority in Cameroon and
that Mbororo is not an ethic group.

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